The present invention relates to a method of and an arrangement for compacting coal particles into stable bodies, and more particularly to such a method and arrangement which is capable of making massive charging bodies to be used in charging a coking oven.
It has already been proposed to compact coking coal outside of the coking chamber in a box-shaped compacting mold by resorting to the use of rams which are supported on a ramming frame and each of which has a ram rod and a ram body which is attached to one end of the ram rod.
Experience has shown that, when certain bituminous coals are used for charging the coking ovens of a coke-manufacturing installation, a satisfactory coke can only be obtained when the coal charge is compacted. This is particularly true for highly volatile coals. When compacting is resorted to, the coking coal to be coked is compacted, layer-by-layer, to a charge body in a box-shaped compacting mold situated outside of the coking oven chamber, by means of rams. Such coking coal may be moisturized with water prior to the compacting thereof to improve the consistency and stability of the charge body. The so-obtained compacted charge body is then pushed into the coking oven chamber to undergo the coking process therein.
A reliable and unproblematical introduction of the charge body into the coking oven chamber presupposes that the ready-to-use charge body possesses a sufficient stability. More particularly, the stability of the charge body must be such that disintegration of the charge body even into a small number of parts is avoided during the introduction of the charge body into the coking oven chamber.
The stability of the final charge body can be improved, on the other hand, by increasing the moisturization of the particulate bed which is to be converted into the charge body. On the other hand, the stability of the charge body also improves with an increase in the degree of compaction and thus in the specific density of the final charge body. Besides the improved stability, an increased specific density of the material of the charge body favorably reflects in the properties of the coke produced by resorting to the above-mentioned compaction, especially in the tendency of the coke to develop cracks and the strength of its structure.
However, the stability of the charge body also additionally depends on the proportion of the width of the charge body to its height. There exists a widespread opinion that the charge body possesses a sufficiently high stability only when the ratio of its width to its height does not exceed 1:9. This means, assuming that the coking oven has a standard width of 0.45 m, as is very often the case, that the height of the charge body must not exceed approximately 3.7 m. As a result of this, the coking ovens currently employed in coking installations operating according to the above-mentioned principles have heights not exceeding 4 m. As a result of the fact that the ratio of the width of the charge body to its height presently amounts to at most 1:9, the coking oven throughput, that is, the throughput of coal related to a unit of useful space of the coking oven as well as to a time unit, is relatively small.